We are pretty sure that you heard this news earlier on Tuesday- that actor Anthony Mackie is among a great group of actors such as Kevin Zegers and Chris Egan for the younger role of the new face that will play along side Tom Cruise in the new Mission: Impossible 4. Word is Paramount is having some testing done for all of the actors and they all signed recent legal documents pertaining to the film- which we hear were non-disclosure agreements.
Anyway, several of our sources and several other sites are hearing a couple of things and one of them stands out; it seems like Mackie is in the lead to land the role!
Now we have to state that this is all just rumors that they have all heard because the decision hasn’t been made just yet but the talk is that Mackie is a favorite.
What we do know is producer/director JJ Abrams has never been reluctant about casting a great actor because of the color of his skin, but he has done things completely opposite. (NBC’s new fall series Undercovers comes to mind here as the lead characters are African American.) Anyway, so far the facts are pointing to Mackie because the talk is he is the best actor in the group who are testing for the role.
What we also know is that Brad Bird is on line to direct the script by Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec, and that both Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are locking in deals to reprise their roles from the previous film (or films, in Rhames’ case).
As you know Mackie’s still probably best known for The Hurt Locker, though he also appeared in other films such as Eagle Eye, Eight Mile, Cross Over and Notorious. Egan wooed Amanda Seyfried in Letters to Juliet and Zegers has appeared in the likes of Transamerica.
Whether any of the three will actually hit the screen, and what they might be playing, remains up in the air, so as we stated before we’re calling this a rumor for now, but as soon as we find out we will let you know!
***UPDATE*** We just discovered that Anthony Mackie was one of the finalists for the part and that Paramount was leaning heavily towards him but since he DID NOT signh an agreement and because of a couple of other pressing issues, Mackie took himself out of contention for this role.
We also discovered that veteran actor Jeremy Renner (also of Hurt Locker fame) was offered the role earlier today and is in the process of accepting the part.
More to come soon.
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